


there is much good in me (still alive and cannot apologize)

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Series: The Rebirth of Octavia Blake [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Blake sibling feels, Children of Gabriel, Death to Primes, Episode: s06e05 The Gospel of Josephine, Face your demons, Gen, Healing, Mind Drives, Nightblood - Freeform, Octavia-centric, POV Octavia Blake, Post-Episode: s06e05 The Gospel of Josephine, Saving the World, Temporal Anomaly, canon-divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-11 21:07:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19117714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: As she sank beneath the quicksand, Octavia chose to live. Now, broken free from the ice, comes the hard part: actually living.Staring down her own mortality, and learning the horrific secret of the Primes, Octavia has only one choice - walk into the anomaly and find Gabriel, the old man who dwells within. For it is only with his help that she can face her demons and save everyone she holds dear.Post-6x05 Octavia-centric specfic.





	1. Portentum

**Author's Note:**

> I know the show is going to have to drag things out for another 7 episodes or so, and will have to focus on characters besides just Octavia (siiigh, I wish it was just her), but this is my prediction of what could happen and how, though I'm sure the show will delegate some tasks to other characters ;) Will be posting a chapter a day up to the airing of 6x06.

Octavia and Diyoza tracked Xavier through the night. As morning approached, his trail suddenly vanished.

“Great.” Octavia sighed. “What the hell do we do - _ow.”_ She looked down at her left hand, more visible now in the rising sun, and grimaced. “What the hell do we do now?” She finished.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” Diyoza asked, coming closer to take a look.

“I don’t know. The flare, it - when the flare was passing over, I could feel the surface hardening, and I pushed my hand up to, I don’t know - try and find a way back out, I guess. Then it got cold before I passed out. I don’t know what happened after that.”

“It aged.” Came Xavier’s voice as he dropped down from the trees, strolling up to them with a casual air. “That’s what the flare does. You saw what it did to the forest around her.” He gave Octavia a knowing look. “You’re lucky to be alive at all.”

Octavia rolled her eyes at him. “Going to talk about a gratitude problem again? She saved me, not you.”

“I could’ve let you both die. I didn’t. Because now you see, we need each other.”

Octavia stepped into Xavier’s personal space, glaring up at him. “And what the hell do we need from you?”

“If you don’t get that fixed, you’re going to die slowly here in this forest, as it ages the rest of you.” Xavier said bluntly and Octavia’s blood ran cold. “Good news is, it can be fixed. Bad news, you don’t have a lot of time so I suggest you give me the information I’m looking for.”

Diyoza slammed Xavier up against a tree and pressed her gun to the side of his head. “Or you can just tell her and stop kidnapping children and we can go our separate ways.”

Xavier sighed and reached his hand up to rub the back of his head, where it had struck the tree, and pulled it back to show them.

His blood was black.

“Some of my people are - sorry, _were_ \- extremists. Who wanted to kill everyone with blood alteration to stop the Primes. But they’re dead now. You both saw to that. The rest of us, our mission is to save them from the Primes in Sanctum. Just like I was.”

“You were born in Sanctum?” Octavia asked slowly.

“Yeah. I was. Got out before my Naming Day. Not everyone is as lucky.” He looked to Octavia. “I’m sorry that little girl died. I really am. But she would have died in fourteen years anyway, and her own people would have done it to her.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Diyoza asked.

“You’ve both been in Sanctum?”

“Only briefly.” Octavia said.

“You met the Primes.”

“Yeah. The rulers of Sanctum. Descendants of the original founding families.”

“That’s the thing.” Xavier said. “Not descendants. Can I please reach into my bag?”

Diyoza let go of him and stepped back. “Talk fast.”

He pulled a small satchel out of his bag, and handed it to Octavia. She opened it, revealing a small multi-pronged device which wouldn’t have looked familiar at all if it wasn’t for the very familiar logo on it.

“The Flame.” Octavia whispered. “Where the hell did you get this?”

“You’ve seen something like this before.” Xavier said, a statement, not a question. “Good. That’ll make this faster. The original settlers here on Alpha had these in their brainstems. So if they died while exploring, everything they’d learned wouldn’t be lost and could be downloaded to a computer. Only some of them figured out how to manipulate the drives so that they could then be implanted into someone else.”

Octavia put the drive back into the bag and tossed it back to him. “Doesn’t sound too bad. Information’s valuable.”

“Ah, but you’ve missed the catch.”

Octavia thought back to the conversation Xavier’s group had been having before she’d escaped with Rose. They’d referred to the child as…

“Your friend called her a host child.” Octavia’s eyes widened. “You mean they’d implant this into her head and she’d… they’d be erasing everything she was, so the drive would take over?”

“Bingo.” Xavier said. “That’s what Naming Day is. Sanctum’s turned it into a religious ritual, the reincarnation of the Primes. We were raised to believe it was a great honour to give up our bodies for the grace and glory of the Primes. So they could live forever.”

“But you didn’t got through with it.” Diyoza said. “Why?”

“Why does anyone do anything in this world - or any other? Love.” Xavier stared at his feet. “We were both hosts, born just a few days apart. We made plans to run away before his Naming Day. I guess his Prime’s mother found out, and - and they caught him off-guard, held him against his will until his Naming Day.” He was quiet for a moment. “Then he was gone.”

“Why didn’t you fight for him?” Octavia asked.

“Don’t you think I tried?” Xavier exclaimed. “I killed his Prime’s mother. I tried to get it out of his head, but the guards arrived before I could finish. They were holding me too, waiting for my Naming Day to force a Prime on me, but - one of the guards was sympathetic to the Children of Gabriel. He let me out, told me where to go. Told me they’d protect me. And they have.”

“So that’s it then? You gave up?”

“I can’t go into Sanctum. They all know my face. I heard a rumour from sympathizers inside that his mind drive is malfunctioning, sometimes - well, he doesn’t remember who he is, but he feels residual emotions, mostly anger, towards the Primes. They try to keep him out of the public eye as much as possible.” Xavier looked straight at Octavia. “You want to know why I hate the Primes? That’s why.”

“Cute tragic love story. But back to business.” Diyoza said. “So you want to save anyone with black blood from being bodysnatched. Fair enough. If we tell you what you want to know, will you promise not to bring any of your extremist friends who would kill our people?”

“Don’t tell him anything.” Octavia hissed. “I still don’t trust him.”

“You don’t trust anyone.” Xavier said. “I get it. Have to do everything yourself? Well then okay. You can do it all yourself. My people and I will stay away from your black bloods. But if you want to save them from the Primes, you’ll have to get them out of Sanctum yourself.”

“We can’t get into Sanctum. Exiled and red blood, remember?” Octavia held up her right hand, showing her bruised knuckles.

“There is someone who can fix that. And, as luck would have it, it’s the same person who can deal with your little aging problem. You just have to be sure.”

Octavia stepped back into Xavier’s personal space to stare him down. “I’m sure.”

“It’s dangerous. You have to go straight into the middle of the anomaly, avoiding the flares the whole way. You’ll know the difference, because the flares move, but the anomaly doesn’t.”

“Is that where the old man lives?” Diyoza asked.

“I’m sure the good people of Sanctum sent you to kill him, right?” Xavier fired back. “Promised you would be let back in?”

“A home for my baby.”

“Just your baby. Well, here’s a better deal. Help us take down the Primes, and you and your baby can have a home in Sanctum. We all can.”

Diyoza looked at Octavia, who shrugged. “Okay.” Diyoza said. “Let’s go.”

“No.” Xavier said, grabbing Diyoza’s arm. “Not you. You don’t want to get hit by a flare and suddenly be giving birth to a teenager. She goes alone.”

“He’s afraid to walk into the anomaly. They all are.” Octavia said. “But you’ve met him. The old man.”

Diyoza’s eyes drifted over the white spot in his hair. “He has.” She said thoughtfully.

“You caught me.” Xavier said. “I did. I met him once. He came out of the anomaly to find me. Couldn’t stay long. Saw I’d been hit by a flare, and I was aging rapidly. He healed me, saying he did it for Sebastian. I thought he was crazy, but - just like that, I was healed. And then he was gone.” He tapped the white spot in his hair. “Got to keep this as a souvenir.”

“Sebastian was your lover? The one who became a Prime?” Octavia asked.

“Yeah. I don’t know how the old man could have even known that, but he did.”

“I’ll find out.” Octavia looked around. “Which way to the anomaly?”

Xavier pointed, and Octavia headed off. She stopped at the edge of the clearing for a moment, turning back to face Diyoza.

“I’ll be back for you.” Octavia promised. Diyoza nodded.

* * *

Octavia walked for hours, dodging flare after flare, feeling the pain in her left hand beginning to crawl up her arm, reaching her elbow by the time she dodged the last flare to see the magnificence of the anomaly itself rise up in front of her, its green and yellow flickering like a flame.

“I am not afraid.” Octavia whispered to herself, reaching her left hand out to stroke the flames, their touch almost soothing the unnaturally aged skin.

She stepped forward and was engulfed.

The flames were a balm on not just her aged hand, but all of the aches and pains coursing through her body, the bruises and the cuts and scrapes from all of the fights she’d been in since waking up. She kept looking at her hands as she walked forward, and while the pain was gone, they weren’t healed, not yet anyway. Maybe further on? She didn’t know.

Octavia began to lose track of time as she kept pressing forward, at least she hoped it was forward, there was nothing but the flames all around her, until finally the flames gave way to a dark tunnel.

After some time, the tunnel opened up into a vast cavern, and two figures stood before her. She recognized them as two of the people she’d seen in Sanctum.

Now Octavia was confused.

“Welcome.” Delilah said with a smile. “I’m afraid this time I can’t offer you a drink like I did before, but, well, you understand.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.” Octavia looked at the man standing next to Delilah with apprehension. “How am I in Sanctum?”

“You’re not in Sanctum.” He said. “None of us are.”

“But you’re Russell Lightbourne. Leader of Sanctum. Leader of the Primes.”

He shook his head sadly. “My name is Theo.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Maybe I can explain.” Came a new voice.

A voice Octavia would recognize anywhere.

_“Clarke?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from “Why Start a Fire” and “Still Alive” by Lisa Miskovsky.


	2. Fanum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia learns what Clarke is doing in the anomaly, and meets Gabriel, who sets her a mission.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Octavia asked Clarke.

“Same thing that all of these poor souls are.” Clarke said sadly, stepping around - no, _through_ \- Delilah. “Hoping for a miracle.”

Octavia swept her hand forward, and it passed right through Clarke. “You’re not real.”

“Hey.” Clarke looked offended. “I’m real. I’m just… displaced.”

It suddenly dawned on Octavia, what she was seeing. “It’s started.” Octavia whispered. “What Xavier said. They put a Prime in you.”

Clarke nodded. “They did. And they think it kills the host consciousness, but it doesn’t - it’s hard to explain. You remember the City of Light?”

“Of course.”

“Gabriel’s found a way to… rescue the host consciousnesses, as it were. Kind of like the City of Light. We just exist, here, while the machine has taken over our brains and bodies. This isn’t paradise. I still remember everything. Every blood gory detail of my life.” Clarke sighed. “Might be easier to bear if I didn’t. But it’s an existence.”

“We’ll get you back to your body.” Octavia promised. “That’s why I’m here.”

“How are you here, anyway? Raven said Bellamy left you in the forest to die.”

“Yeah.” Octavia scoffed. “Brother of the year.”

“I know how you feel, Octavia.”

“How could you? He still cares about you.”

“Him and Madi and my mother are the only ones. The others are all still pretty mad at me. So I do get it. I know what it’s like to be hated for the hard choices you had to make to keep people alive. I know what it’s like to be judged for doing what you thought was right. I know what it’s like to regret what you’ve done and said sorry and still have people hate you for it.”

“I can’t regret it!” Octavia yelled, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. “I can’t regret what I’ve done. That would mean regretting that I wanted my people to live. That I regret saving them, even if I couldn’t save myself.”

“I’m sorry you were alone in that, Octavia.” Clarke said. “I really am.”

Octavia narrowed her eyes at Clarke. “In what?”

“My mother told me and Madi about the Dark Year. When we were in Shallow Valley.”

“Did she also tell you that it was all _her_ idea?”

“Yes.” Clarke said simply.

“Well, that’s new. Ever since I woke up all she can do is absolve herself and lay all the blame on me.”

“That wouldn’t be the first time. She let me think that it was my fault that my father was executed on the Ark, when really it was hers. I hoped she learned from that, but - our elders aren’t always the bearers of wisdom that we thought they were.”

“Isn’t that the truth. You weren’t trapped underground for six years with all of them.”

“I can’t imagine how hard all of that must have been for you. I’m sorry we weren’t there for you. I mean it. It must have been so hard shouldering that all by yourself. Like Madi reminded me, you bore it, so they didn’t have to. She’s a wise kid.”

“A wise kid with Nightblood who is in Sanctum right now.”

Clarke’s eyes widened. “Right. You had a mission.”

“Where’s the old man?”

“Is that what they’re calling me these days?” A voice boomed, as the man belonging to it walked up from a smaller tunnel. “Clarke, it seems you know our new guest.”

Octavia observed him carefully, trying to discern his age, though the dim light made it difficult, and something about him seemed to transcend age entirely.

“This is Octavia.” Clarke supplied. “She’s actually here. Physically.”

“I’m quite adept at telling the difference between avatars my program has created and physical humans, Clarke.” He chided. “Welcome, Octavia. I’m Gabriel.”

“The Children of Gabriel are yours.” Octavia said.

“In a manner of speaking. They are the descendants of those who I was able to save from Sanctum when I defected, over 200 years ago now.”

“You’re a Prime.” Another statement, not a question.

“I could have been. But I’m not, not in the way they are. I don’t have a mind drive. I don’t steal bodies, I provide a haven for those whose bodies have been stolen. This place, here, exists outside of the normal bounds of time - and as long as I remain within it, I do not age. And so you’ll find that when you leave this place, _if_ you leave this place, you’ll return back to the same time that you arrived, give or take a few minutes.”

“If I leave this place?” Octavia asked with some apprehension.

“Well, you’ve risked everything to come here for a reason. Depending on what that reason or reasons are, leaving could be a challenge. So what brings you here?”

“I… two reasons. One, I’m not sure how much Clarke has told you about us, but we came here from Earth. And now that we know what the Primes are doing to anyone with black blood, I want to rescue those with the blood from Sanctum, but I don’t have it, so I can’t get through the radiation shield. Though seeing Clarke here - that means we may already be too late.”

“Never too late. Clarke is safe here after all. But what of the second reason?”

Octavia held up her left hand. “I was touched by a flare. A temporal flare, Xavier called it.”

Another avatar flickered into existence beside Clarke, a young man about Xavier’s age. “Xavier is alive? Is he okay?”

Octavia looked him up and down. “He is. You must be Sebastian.”

He nodded. “I am. Gabriel, is it true? That there are more with the blood, and the Primes are moving against them?”

“It is, Sebastian. Which means that it is time to make our move against them for once and for all.” Gabriel held a hand out to Octavia. “I hope you’re ready to save the world.”

* * *

Octavia took a deep breath, sitting back in her chair, having listened to every detail of the long story Gabriel had spun. It was a lot to take in.

“So you’re still connected to Sanctum, even though you’ve been away for 200 years.” Octavia clarified.

“In some technological means, yes. They’re not aware of the details as far as I can tell, since each of the souls that comes through here corroborates the stories that I see play out on the video system. But that technological link is key to being able to kill the mind drives for once and for all.”

“I just -” Octavia exchanged a glance with Clarke, who, along with Sebastian and a few other avatars, had also listened to Gabriel’s story. “It’s all up to me. If it even works.”

“You can choose just to rescue the black bloods. I’ll give you the blood alteration, and you can save them. But they’ll be on the run here in the woods for the rest of their lives. My Children will give them safe haven, but your people will still never be completely safe on this moon.”

“And I’ll die of this, unless I stay here.” Octavia held up her hand.

Gabriel nodded. “But if you clear your mind of its impurities, you’ll be healed, then when they take you in to implant one of the mind drives, you’ll be able to stop them all. Return these avatars to their bodies. The Primes will be no more. That’s the deal.”

Octavia looked at Clarke again, worry clear in her eyes.

“You’ll be fine.” Clarke said gently. “It’s just like the City of Light. Only in reverse. Kind of.” Clarke furrowed her brow. “And without Lexa to protect you.”

“Thanks, Clarke. You always know just the right thing to say.”

“You can do this, Octavia.” Clarke said, kneeling down in front of her, an Octavia felt a crackle of electricity pass over her knee as Clarke tried to place a reassuring hand there. “I know I haven’t always believed in you when I should have. And maybe a lot of that is why we’re here now. We can’t change the past. But we can learn from it. We can heal from it.”

“What if I can’t?” Octavia’s voice trembled. “I… I’m not afraid. In the physical world. But going into my mind… that terrifies me more than anything else in the universe. And being trapped in there should I fail…”

“You won’t fail.” Clarke said firmly. “My mind isn’t the most fun place to be either. But I had to go through all of that when I arrived here. And I did it. We all did.” Clarke gestured to the other avatars in the room. “Granted, their mental baggage isn’t the same as ours, but - you’re the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever known. A bit reckless maybe.” Clarke gave one of her half-smiles and Octavia rolled her eyes. “But brave. Braver than all of the rest of us. That’s what I told Madi, and that’s one thing I know that hasn’t changed about you.”

A ping sounded through the room, and all of the avatars straightened up, looking off into a distance at something Octavia couldn’t see. But she did see the horrified expression passing over Clarke’s face.

Something was definitely wrong.

“What is it?” Octavia asked. “What’s happening? What are you seeing?”

“Gabriel, are you able to show her?” Clarke asked, her expression growing more distraught. “Please, show her!”

“A new video from the operating room within Sanctum’s temple has come through.” Gabriel clarified, standing up and going to the computer on the other side of the room, Octavia trailing along behind him. “They ping in whenever there’s been activity in the room, and the anomaly flickers to let them pass.” Gabriel’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Judging by the timestamp, this one was recorded just a few hours before you entered here.”

He brought the video up on the screen, and let it play.

“No.” Octavia whispered, hand flying up to cover her mouth. “No no no _no._ ”

There were two gurneys in the operating room, both with people strapped down to them, paralyzed but awake, from what she could tell from their frantic eye movement.

Madi was one.

Bellamy was the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, has anyone guessed who Sebastian is yet? ;)


	3. Sacramentum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is faced with a horrific reality, and Octavia begins to face her demons so that she can save them all.

“No time for the Primes right now.” Octavia said. “Just give me the blood serum, and I have to go get Madi out before anything worse happens.”

“Octavia, _no.”_ Clarke said. “If you run now, you’ll die. You won’t get to Madi.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nightblood takes a few days to work. You won’t get through the radiation shield if you were to go there now.”

_“Your_ daughter and _my_ brother are - are about to be _tortured,_ and who knows what else, and you want me to wait?”

“We’re outside of time here.” Clarke reminded her. “You can let several days pass in here, and it will only be a few minutes out there, if that. Enough time for your blood to accept the alteration. Enough time for you to go through your mind and cleanse the impurities, as Gabriel said.” Clarke’s expression hardened. “And then when you’ve done that - you kill them all.”

“She’s right.” Gabriel said. “The only way to help them now is to be ready to take them all down. Otherwise they won’t stop. If they’ve got them both, that means -”

“What the hell is my mother doing there?” Clarke asked, looking back at the video, where Abby came into the frame, accompanied by whoever was walking around in Clarke’s body. “In what world would my mother do this to Madi?”

“She thinks it’s you.” Octavia’s voice grew hollow. “She thinks it is you and that you’re doing this to help everyone - sorry, to help _her.”_

Clarke and Octavia’s eyes met. “Kane.” They said at the same time.

“To save him your mother would do anything.” Octavia said bitterly. “Including destroying me.”

Clarke tried to grab Octavia by the shoulders, and huffed in anger as her avatar form prevented it. “She didn’t destroy you. You’re still here. You can stop this. You can stop her. You’re stronger than she is. Braver. I know you can do this, Octavia. Clear your mind. Save us all. Please.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll do it.” Octavia said.

Clarke led her back over to the chair she’d been sitting in before. Gabriel handed her the chip, which she looked at apprehensively.

“This really does look like that chip from the City of Light.” Octavia said with some concern. “I don’t want to be a drone.”

“You won’t be.” Gabriel assured her. “Clarke told me of this City of Light that you encountered on Earth, created by the same technology that created all of this. But it is very different. If it helps, the Primes are more like the drones that you speak of, and this chip will be like the Flame. You don’t need the black blood to take this one - but I’ll administer the serum before you go under, so it can begin altering your blood. All this chip will do is connect you to the same neurological interface that these avatars exist within. There you will run through the same simulation that they do before they manifest as full beings here. When you wake - _if_ you wake - and you leave for Sanctum, you’ll be able to see and hear the avatars as if you were in here, and they can provide guidance as needed to get you through Sanctum. Then when the Primes insert a mind drive in you - you’ll be protected and you can take them all down.”

Octavia nodded. “Okay.”

“I’ll give you a few minutes, go get the serum. Then it will be time to face your demons.”

She closed her eyes and inhaled, exhaled, slowly, a few times. Tried to find peace, despite her thoughts running a mile a minute. _Breathe._ One thing at a time. Advice from long ago, in another life. _A warrior doesn’t worry about what she can’t control._

Octavia opened her eyes. “I’m ready.”

“I believe in you.” Clarke said. “You’ve got this.”

Gabriel returned with the serum. Octavia didn’t flinch as he injected it into her arm.

“There’s no telling how long you’ll be in the simulation.” Gabriel said. “It all depends on your mind. How much time it takes you to resolve the issues lingering there.”

“And what does it judge against?” Octavia asked.

“It doesn’t judge. It unravels.”

“What?”

“Octavia, you’re not being judged by some outside standard that the world is imposing on you. That isn’t the recipe for a clear mind. It helps you resolve the world and your past based on your own beliefs. We all do the best we can, but there are always situations where we think we could have done better. That is what you’ll be exploring here.”

Octavia looked down at the chip again, beginning to wonder, how much of her pain was her own, and how much was from how others looked at her, how others judged her.

“May I make an observation?” Gabriel offered.

“Sure.”

“I don’t know all of your story. But I know some of it, and from what I’ve heard I can tell that much of what bothers you is how others see you, how others judge you, because they don’t understand you. Some people even use that vulnerability to prey on you and make you question yourself.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“But if you do this, they can’t question you anymore. You’ll save all of them, and no matter what else they may think, that will be a proof that they can’t deny. And from there, they’ll be forced to reevaluate everything they’d thought of you before. But that all starts by facing yourself. Face yourself, face the demons that haunt you, and then you prove to the world that you’re not what they thought you were.”

Octavia lifted the chip to her mouth and placed it on her tongue, speaking the words that Gabriel had told her as she swallowed it.

_Esto quod es._

And the world around her vanished.

* * *

Octavia opened her eyes to chaos.

She was back in the dropship, voices of the other delinquents yelling all around her, a storm howling outside. In front of her, Clarke staring down Bellamy.

And on the floor, unconscious, bruised and bloodied, but alive -

“Lincoln.” Octavia whispered.

Why was she back in this moment? What was it about this day, this moment, that brought her mind here?

As she followed Bellamy, Miller and the others up to the top level of the dropship, she tried to remember the details of that day. Any details that could shed light on why she was back here, what unresolved issue her mind felt she had with this day.

Bellamy, Miller and some of their crew had subdued Lincoln, brought him back to the dropship. Tied him up, questioned him. Then when it came out that the blade he’d stabbed Finn with was poisoned, Bellamy and Raven had tortured him, looking for the antidote.

Clarke let them. But Octavia stopped them.

_Not soon enough,_ Octavia thought. _Is that it?_

She’d cut her own arm open with the poisoned knife, and Lincoln had given up the antidote, but not before she’d watched Bellamy beat him with a seatbelt and stab one of their makeshift weapons through his hand. Not before she’d watched Raven electrocute him.

_This is not who we are._ She remembered saying. _This is not who we are._

Octavia had been the peacemaker. _I’ve always been the peacemaker,_ she thought. _But sometimes peace is impossible. Sometimes you have to fight. You have to know when to attack and when not to. Indra taught me that._

This was not the time to attack.

Clarke was storming up the ladders with the poisoned knife. Octavia knew what had to be done. She knew what she had to do.

“I give all of myself.” She whispered to herself, before following on Clarke’s heels.

This time, when Bellamy pushed her away, she didn’t hesitate. She snatched up the knife from where Clarke had thrown it, and threw herself between Bellamy and Lincoln just as Bellamy’s first swing dropped, catching her across the chest instead. She fell back against Lincoln from the force of the hit, and dropped to her knees in front of her brother.

“O!” Bellamy yelled, eyes horrified and angry at the same time. “O, what the hell are you doing?”

“This is not who we are.” Octavia pleaded, pressing her free hand to the gash on her collarbone. “Please.”

“O, get out of the way now.”

“No.” Octavia got to her feet, still staying between her brother and Lincoln. “You want to get to him, you have to come through me.”

“He’s letting Finn die.”

Octavia turned to face Lincoln, staring him in the eye, trying to remember he wasn’t _her_ Lincoln yet, but that that day would come and they would have happiness, if only for a short while.

But he had still saved her.

“He won’t let me die.” She said, voice trembling as it had before, but her hand was steady as she slowly and deliberately cut her forearm with the blade.

She watched as Lincoln’s eyes widened, and she pushed Bellamy out of the way as she snatched the box with the vials out of Clarke’s hands, holding them up to Lincoln one after another until he finally nodded in confirmation.

“Thank you.” Clarke said, dashing back down the ladders to save Finn.

Bellamy came up to Octavia but she pulled out of his grasp as she had before, waiting to see how he’d tried to justify himself this time.

But he surprised her.

“O, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He said. “You’re right. This isn’t who we are. We need to be better.”

“Damn right we do.” Octavia responded, already feeling this world dropping away, already knowing that she’d passed this first test with flying colours.

But she knew they wouldn’t all be this easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Esto quod es - Be what you are


	4. Piaculum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia revisits an unexpected moment, and one that she dreads above all others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Blood and self-harm in this chapter.

After five failed attempts at saving Maya in the last hours of Mount Weather, Octavia finally succeeded, falling through a void that now took her to the tunnels beneath Polis, coming to in her body just as Bellamy and Pike took out the guards at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

“You didn’t have to kill them.” She said on reflex, remembering this moment.

“Yes I did.” Bellamy said, turning to her with fire and anger in his eyes, before starting the long climb up.

The climb gave Octavia time to contemplate what it was that she was doing here. Here in this moment, this hour, this day. Hours earlier had been the last moment that she and Bellamy had truly been brother and sister, before the chaos of the destruction of Mount Weather and Pike’s rise to power that had laid waste to their lives and everything they held dear, including their relationship with each other.

_You didn’t have to kill them._

Bellamy had said something like that to her before locking her out of the transport ship.

Bellamy was the key here.

What had they done here? What was so important about this moment that merited bringing her back to it? All they’d done was storm the summit, Raven had radioed that Mount Weather was destroyed. Indra handed her her sword back and then they’d headed back to Arkadia.

Octavia went through the motions, knowing how the events unfolded, hearing Raven’s distraught voice on the radio. She didn’t know what she could do, there wasn’t anything that could change what happened.

As soon as she turned to leave the room with Indra, Abby and Kane, she found herself back in the tunnels.

_What happened after I left the room that was so important?_ Octavia wondered.

This time Octavia hung back, watching Bellamy as he talked to Clarke, his expression when she refused to come back with them. Clarke stepped away and Bellamy turned to the door, and Octavia didn’t miss his distressed expression this time, the tears gathering in his eyes.

_Sinclair and I are the only ones left,_ Raven had said.

“Of course.” Octavia whispered as Bellamy came toward her.

“Bell…” Octavia trailed off as he stopped in front of her, and she pulled him into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

“O, I…”

“I know.” Octavia held him tighter. “I know. You tried. And sometimes… you don’t always succeed. You do the best you can.”

“People died. _Gina’s_ dead. Because I trusted the wrong person.”

“You can’t blame yourself. And you can’t blame Clarke or Lexa or Indra or Trikru or most of the other Grounders, okay?” Octavia pulled back from the hug to look Bellamy in the eye. “You heard the ambassador. Ice Nation did this. Only Ice Nation is guilty.”

“Does it really matter who is guilty? We’re not safe here. None of us.”

“Yes. We are. And yes, it does matter.” Bellamy tried to move past her, but she held him firmly in place. “Bellamy. Listen to me. Clarke and Lexa will see to it that Ice Nation is held accountable for what they did. But you can’t - you can’t let your anger overwhelm you. Because trust me when I say that will create a cycle of violence that is going to be so hard to break. A cycle we may never break. Please, Bell. Please. Don’t go down that path. Gina wouldn’t want you to do that. Please.”

A few tears made their way down Bellamy’s cheeks, but he nodded. “You’re right. She was good. Maybe too good for me. But I have to be better.”

Octavia nodded. “That’s right. Do better. Gina would want you to.”

She pressed a kiss to Bellamy’s cheek and pulled him back into a hug as sobs overtook him, even as she felt the ground falling out from beneath her feet.

_Do better,_ she thought as she fell back through the void.

* * *

Octavia knew it would end here.

She didn’t know how, but she did. Here, in the cafeteria in the bunker, after examining more of her past choices than she could count, would be the last test she faced of her past decisions. She may not have been sure on this day, but every day after - she’d been sure. She’d known the stakes, she’d known her choices, she’d known her reasons.

_I give all of myself to you._

She’d done it on this day, and every day since. But this was where it all began. In the years since, she had replayed this day over and over again, every potential scenario, everything she could have done differently, anything she could have done to save her people without doing what she’d done.

Which scenario would yield the necessary results? Would any of them?

Now it was time to see the truth.

Octavia didn’t confront her people, she went straight to Kane and pressed the gun to his head first. _No, it wasn’t just him._

Octavia told her people the stakes - if people were allowed to starve to death, that would cause everyone else to die as well due to lack of nutrients. _No, they still carried the guilt._

Octavia sent all of the resisters to the fighting pit. _No, some of them still lived, and still refused to eat._

Scenario after scenario, Octavia found herself back in her seat at the head table, no closer to resolving it. No closer to being free. No closer to saving her people within the delicate balance of _them living_ and _them being able to live with themselves._

That’s what it all came down to. Abby had hammered home the stories of the Blight on the Ark and how it hadn’t been eating their dead that almost killed them, but the guilt. Perhaps naively, Octavia had believed that this meant that Abby was ready to share the burden of that responsibility. That if nothing else, that even if everyone else hated them for forcing them to eat, that they’d be in it together. That they’d have each other for support.

But Abby hadn’t been there. Octavia knew that Abby still carried the guilt, but had absolved herself of any responsibility, leaving Octavia to carry it alone.

Now after reliving this moment in horrifying colours more times than she could count, Octavia began to wonder why. What would happen if she held Abby to account?

Octavia stood up, asking Abby to give the medical reasons for why they had to eat. _No, people still resisted, preferring to die with their morals rather than live with themselves._

Octavia looked straight at Kane while pressing the gun to Abby’s head, telling him to eat. _No, Kane would eat, but that wouldn’t motivate the others._

And again and again and again. _What am I missing?_ Octavia wondered desperately, the fear of being trapped here for eternity beginning to bloom into a terrifying possibility.

_I give all of myself to you._

This time, when she stood, Octavia took off her heavy coat, leaving it behind on her chair as she approached the same table of resisters. She wasn’t wearing her sword-belt, but she did have the daggers that were always tucked into her boots.

This time, as she rose from where she knelt in front of Kahlan, she drew one of them from her boot as she placed the cube back on his tray.

This time, she didn’t go for the gun.

She didn’t go for Kahlan either. Instead, she drew the blade very deliberately up her own forearm, watching with a detached fascination as her blood began to drip out onto the floor.

Kane was beside her in an instant. “Octavia, what are you doing?”

“You eat, or you die.” Octavia said calmly. “All of Wonkru will die if you let yourselves starve to death. Not enough meat on your bones to feed those who will eat. I still have some meat on my bones. If I die now, my people can live a bit longer.”

“There is no Wonkru without you.” Kane hissed at her, trying to be quiet about it, trying to keep his voice from carrying but it did nonetheless in the enclosed space.

“Then eat.”

“The clans will start fighting again. There will be bloodshed on a scale we haven’t seen yet.”

Octavia stepped right up to him, staring him dead in the eye. _“Then eat.”_

“The human race could tear itself apart. There would be no survivors.”

“Then. Eat.” Octavia pulled the tip of her blade up her other wrist, more blood drip drip _dripping_ to the floor. “Clans fight to the death or Wonkru starves to death. Those are the choices you’re offering. Or there’s this third one. _Eat._ Eat those who are already dead, eat those who break our laws and pay the ultimate price for it, and no else has to die.”

Octavia could feel herself growing faint from the blood loss, and as she continued to stare down Kane, her knees buckled and she dropped to the ground, losing consciousness…

… coming to back in her chair at the front of the room. _No, self-sacrifice isn’t the answer either._

“What more do you want from me?” Octavia screamed, as everyone in the room looked on, scene attempting to reset with each movement, making her dizzy as the simulation tried to pull her back to point zero. “I’ve tried everything!”

_Not everything,_ a voice in the back of her mind whispered.

“Maybe there is no other solution.” Octavia murmured, closing her eyes in defeat. “Maybe there never was.”

_Now you’ve got it._

“I bear it so they don’t have to.” Octavia recalled Clarke’s words. “I am the monster, so that fear absolves them. I am the sinner, so that guilt does not touch them. I am become death, destroyer of worlds, so that new life finds them.”

She opened her eyes, and let go.

The scene played out exactly as it had that day in the cafeteria. Octavia asked, she pleaded, she gave them their chance.

And then she took their lives, just as she had that day.

This time she didn’t have to stay to see the aftermath, for as soon as Kane swallowed his first bite, everything was fading to darkness.

This was a different darkness than after the previous scenarios, and Octavia hoped that this meant she’d be waking up soon. Hoped that she was free from this prison of her mind.

But the darkness didn’t budge, until only Clarke appeared in front of her.

“You’ve done well.” Clarke said. “I’m so proud of you, Octavia. You’ve come to peace with your decisions. Now you need to come to peace with yourself.”

Clarke vanished again, leaving Octavia in the darkness, even more confused than she had been before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might accidentally be a 7th chapter. Whoops. But good news for you - that means you'll get the next one sooner, since I'll post it in the morning! Just so I can still get everything posted before 6x06 airs.


	5. Collegium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia faces herself.

Octavia didn’t know how long she’d been waiting in the darkness. Waiting for something, _anything_ to happen. If being in nothing but darkness was supposed to stimulate introspection, well, it wasn’t working.

She huffed and sat down, she was standing on something solid so surely sitting wouldn’t be a problem either.

As soon as she did, however, she felt manacles clamp down around her wrists, and the darkness slowly receded. Not completely, but enough - enough so that she could see that she was back in the bunker’s arena.

_I’m always going to be shackled here, aren’t I?_ Octavia wondered. _It all comes back to this._

She had nothing to lose, so she unleashed all of her feelings in a primal scream, all of the emotions that she hadn’t been able to show in the bunker, everything she’d had to lock away behind her mask for years. She screamed and screamed and screamed until she heard a clatter at the side of the arena, outside of the light, past her field of vision.

Someone else was there.

“Quiet.” A voice - _her voice_ \- scolded. “They’ll hear you. They’ll know. They’ll know what you really are. _Weak.”_

Blodreina stepped out of the shadows, sword in hand.

Octavia fell quiet and got to her feet, straightening up as much as she could with the chain that was holding the manacles to the floor.

“I’m not weak.” Octavia said, though her voice didn’t sound as convincing as she’d hoped. _“You_ are my weakness.”

“Is that what you think?” Blodreina taunted, circling around her. “We had everything we needed to conquer that valley. The army, the worms, the plans. But your weakness for your brother and your friends made all of that go away. You let them get to you. You let them question you. You let them destroy you. And for what? To hope you’d get back into their good graces? They _abandoned_ you here. And now look at us.” Blodreina scoffed. “You’re still fighting for their approval. And for what? You’ll never have it. They’ll never accept us.”

“You are not me.” Octavia growled.

Blodreina smiled. “Is that what you still think? You think you can be rid of me? I’m _in_ you. You can wish me away all you want, but I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t need you anymore.”

“Let’s see about that, shall we?” Blodreina snapped her fingers and Octavia’s manacles and chain vanished, a sword appearing on the floor in front of her. She picked it up.

Now she and Blodreina circled each other, weapons at the ready, staring into each other’s eyes. It was almost hypnotic, Octavia thought, vaguely wondering if Blodreina was trying to lull her into a false sense of security. But they kept their weapons sharp, watching, waiting, looking for an opportunity.

Octavia attacked first. Blodreina parried, and so they danced, sword to sword, a whirlwind of clashing blades and swirling coats and capes, until a moment when Octavia saw her chance.

She took it, slashing Blodreina across the right cheek.

Pain bloomed on her own right cheek, and she brought her hand up to touch it, fingers coming away bloody.

“That’s right.” Blodreina grinned. “Cut me, and we both bleed.”

Undaunted, Octavia attacked again, slicing a path through Blodreina’s right bicep, causing her to drop her sword, and again, the same injury appeared on her own arm.

“Enough!” came a third voice, almost shocked at its own volume, and when Octavia watched its owner step out into the light, she understood why.

Grey dress, black leggings, striped socks… blue masquerade mask.

It was her. As she had been. Back on that first day when what little she’d had was taken away from her. Her mother, dead. Her brother, gone. And she was locked up in a cell with even less hope than she’d had before.

She was almost unfamiliar, it had been so long.

Unfamiliar, that is, except for the gash on her cheek and her bleeding bicep.

And she wasn’t alone. Octavia watched as more of her past selves emerged from the shadows. Next to the Girl Under the Floor, the bruised girl who’d risked her own life to save Finn’s and Lincoln’s. Then braids and war paint, she was there as Indra’s second, ready to take on Mount Weather. Skairipa lurked behind them, cloak hiding her face from view, but Octavia knew. Osleya, dressed to the nines in the Commander’s garb, materialized out of the darkness on Blodreina’s other side.

All of them bleeding from identical wounds.

Blodreina had lost her sword, but Octavia hadn’t, and she lashed out again, cutting her along the side as pain bloomed in an identical spot on her own side.

“No more!” The Octavia who had saved Finn and Lincoln yelled, trying to throw herself between Octavia and Blodreina, but Skairipa pulled her back, charging ahead herself, holding up a sword.

“You think this is going to help?” Skairipa admonished Octavia. “You can’t cut her out any more than you can cut out any of us.”

“She’s dangerous.” Octavia hissed.

“She’s _you._ We all are.”

“No. I can’t have her.” Octavia dropped her sword and launched herself at Blodreina, pummeling her with her fists. “You. Are. Not. Me!”

Octavia felt each strike on her own face, blood dripping from her nose, from her teeth. She didn’t know how long it went on, she tried to block out the other images of herself, but they were all shouting at her, voices blending together, until finally Indra’s second and Osleya grabbed her by the elbows and hauled her off of Blodreina.

Skairipa put her sword to Octavia’s neck, keeping her there on her back.

“Did that make you feel better?” Skairipa rasped around a mouthful of blood, finally spitting it out onto the floor. “Do you feel happier now?”

“No.”

“Think.” Osleya said. “What was it that we said after winning the Final Conclave?”

“We’re sharing the bunker. All of the clans. We survive together.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“This is _our_ Unity Day.” Skairipa said. “We are all a part of you. We are not costumes and identities that you gain and discard at will. We are all there, inside of you. And until you accept us, you’re not going anywhere.”

Octavia lay back on the cool concrete floor of the arena, thinking about what they were telling her. What Clarke had said before this started, about how she needed to make peace with herself.

But she had been so many different and contradictory things, the evidence was right here. How could they all come together into one?

“We’re not contradictory.” Osleya said, as if reading Octavia’s thoughts, which of course, were _her_ thoughts as well, Octavia realized. “We may express ourselves differently, but we are all you. The core of you. The piece of you that no one has been able to take away. That piece of you that’s brought you here.”

Octavia closed her eyes and let her mind reach out to all of the girls surrounding her.

The innocent girl under the floor, who’d read a lot about the world but never seen it, with dreams of epic heroes and villains, where the lines and sides were all so _clear,_ and she knew if she were able to be out in the world, she would have been like Robin Hood or Perseus or any of the other heroes of legend who performed great feats to save the world.

The girl who chased butterflies and tried to broker peace with the Grounders, always looking for the best in people, risking her life to save Finn, to save Lincoln, to save all of them, the girl who believed in hope and a better world.

Indra’s second, a girl learning the art of war, learning, always learning, finding her footing in a new world where people were ready to accept her as one of them, only to lose it all when she put blood above belonging and wouldn’t abandon her brother in Mount Weather.

Skairipa, the first shell she’d built for her grief, meticulous and precise, striking like a serpent from the shadows, but still showing mercy when _family_ was threatened, defying the king to do what was right.

Osleya, the hero who rose from the ashes to give people hope where there was none, to unite all of the clans and give each of them places in the bunker, the opportunity to survive Praimfaya and the chance to rebuild the world in its wake.

Blodreina, the ruthless leader born of blood and pain, when harmony wasn’t enough to keep order and keep her people alive, who took on all of the sins of her people so they would stay blameless, so that they deserved to live, and fought for their rightful home on the ground so they could _live_ instead of just survive.

It had been staring her in the face all along.

_I give all of myself._

“That’s why you all exist.” Octavia said out loud. “We give so much that we break each time, and all that’s left are scattered pieces of our soul, frozen in different times. Static. Immutable. But all with the same mission. And now… now that mission has to be what brings _us_ together. No longer fragments floating in the dark. But us. _Me._ Unity Day.” Octavia smiled a tired smile. “I get it now.”

The others were silent, though Octavia was sure she’d cracked it.

She opened her eyes.

She was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, the logistics of seven Octavias in one room... I hope it worked ;)


	6. Votum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia wakes up, and learns that the situation has changed.

Octavia came to with a gasp, registering her unfamiliar surroundings. She was strapped to a gurney not all that different from the ones in the Sanctum video, and for a brief moment of panic she wondered if somehow she’d already been captured by them.

Then Clarke materialized next to her, and she breathed easier.

“Sorry about the restraints.” Clarke said, her tone sincerely apologetic. “But this is the first time a physical person has gone through that simulation, and Gabriel didn’t know that it would manifest somewhat physically as well.”

It was at that point that Octavia registered her splitting headache and started cataloging all of her other injuries. Everything that had happened in the simulation had manifested on her physical body, the worst of it from when she’d attacked herself in the arena.

Octavia groaned, dropping her head back against the pillows. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I guess. I used to believe that.”

“It’s still true.” Clarke said. “You did it.”

“I wish I could say my mind felt clear though.”

“Emotional healing takes time. But you’ve achieved the moral equilibrium that was asked of you. The rest… we’ll be here for you.”

“We?”

“All of us. Even Bellamy.”

“Bellamy hates me.”

“He won’t. When all is said and done, when he learns what you’ve been through, what you’ve done, he won’t. I’ll make sure of it, if he doesn’t come to his senses on his own.”

“Did you…” Octavia swallowed hard. “Did you see my simulation?”

Clarke nodded. “I did.”

“Nothing changed.” Octavia said. “In the Dark Year. Why? If I knew it was the right decision, why did this torture me, over and over again, just to end as it began?”

“I had the same problem with Mount Weather.” Clarke explained. “Best I can say is - you hoped there was another choice. You hoped there was something better than what you did. So you had to go through it to see that there wasn’t. That you did do the best you could.”

“That’s correct.” Gabriel said as he entered the room. “Good, you’re awake. I was just running some tests from the latest sample, and it would seem you’re ready to go. The Nightblood has taken.”

“Bit of a problem there.” Octavia said, pulling on her restraints, wincing as the wristband rubbed against the cuts on her wrist that was already bandaged.

“Oh, sorry.” Gabriel unfastened the restraints holding Octavia down, and she sat up slowly, rubbing her sore head. “You really did a number on yourself in there.”

“What can I say, I’m stubborn.”

“Let’s get these injuries cleaned and stitched up. Rest for the night, and see how you feel in the morning.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two days, as time is counted in here. Don’t worry, it has only been a few minutes on the outside. I’ll give you something so you don’t have to feel the stitches, and it’ll help you sleep.”

Octavia nodded, swallowing what he handed her, and she fell back against the pillows. She noticed her left hand was back to normal.

“You healed me.” She said. “Thank you.”

“Yeah.” Gabriel said. “When you were reaching the end… I knew you were the person I’d been waiting for for the past 200 years.”

“Why not do it yourself?” Octavia asked. “Why not take down Sanctum on your own? If you have all the tools? Or why not get one of your Children to do it?”

“Fear.” Gabriel admitted. “After I raised the first generation and then walked into this anomaly looking for more answers about this world, and created this neural interface so the Prime host consciousnesses could live… my Children began to fear me. So I stayed here with the avatars of the Prime hosts, and passed into legend. But one person remembers me, and has for centuries.”

“Russell.”

“Yes. He’d never put a modified mind drive in me. I removed my own centuries ago, and he knows that when I defected, that I’d never stop trying to find a way to take him down. If Xavier or Sebastian had dared to venture out of Sanctum before their Naming Days, we could have set up one of them to do it, but as it was, it came too late. Sebastian was already taken, and Xavier was on the run. They wouldn’t have taken him back.”

“But you think they’d take me back. Even though I was exiled by my own brother.”

“If last they knew is that you were set on a course to destroy me, they’d welcome you back with the information you could provide regardless of how your people feel about you.” Gabriel said. “But it also depends on who you encounter. If you find Josephine… you may not even need to say anything. She’s never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She’ll see that you have Nightblood, find that suits her purposes and not say anything to anyone else.”

“I hope you’re right.” Octavia felt her eyelids getting sleepy, and closed them, beginning to drift off.

“Me too.” Gabriel whispered.

* * *

“Octavia? _Octavia!”_

Octavia awoke to Clarke yelling in her ear, groaning, her head still pounding. “What, Clarke?”

“You have to go. Now.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Probably not long enough. But there’s a problem.”

“Of course there is.”

Octavia sat up, wincing as the movement jarred the injury on her side. She opened her eyes slowly, the low light of the room still painful to her eyes. Gabriel, Clarke and Delilah were standing there.

“So what’s the issue?” Octavia asked, struggling to her feet and pulling on her coat from where it was abandoned on a nearby chair.

“Things have escalated in Sanctum.” Gabriel said.

“I thought you said no more than a few minutes would pass.”

“That’s what I thought. But the most recent videos pinged in, and… a few days’ worth of videos appeared. It would appear that the anomaly has been unstable, and a few days’ worth of time moved in synchronicity with the outside.”

“No time to waste then.” Octavia grimaced as she staggered towards the door.

“Octavia, wait.” Clarke said. “You can barely walk.”

“I’ve made it this long. All I have to do is make it to Sanctum, get them to release Madi and collapse onto a bed so they can mind drive me. Easy.”

“Well, as you head out then, let us at least tell you what we know.”

“Go ahead.”

The three trailed after Octavia as they headed back to the tunnels.

“My mother has been taking Nightblood samples from Madi. Preparing them for use on others. So far, they’ve only got their hands on Bellamy, and they’ve injected him. So he’s been undergoing the same blood alteration as you have.” Clarke explained.

“From the sounds of it, the rest of your people, save for Clarke’s mother, have holed themselves up in your transport ship.” Delilah said. “Some of the Primes are there too, in the control room, preventing the ship from taking off, but they’re at a stalemate. No one is getting on or off the ship.”

“Why are the Primes on the ship?” Octavia asked.

“Part of a deal with my mother.” Clarke said tightly. “You were right. They went back up for Kane. Downloaded his consciousness to a mind drive. Russell had some sort of special device for that, so that Kane didn’t need to have Nightblood for it to happen before his body expired. My mother was able to slip off the ship while the others fought with the Primes.”

“Kane’s dead.” Octavia said, a note of relief in her voice.

“His body is. His mind may not be.”

“Oh, it will be.” Octavia growled. “Because if your mother thinks that she’s going to put him into my brother without any consequences, she’s got another thing coming.”

They’d come to the exit.

“Octavia!” Clarke called out before Octavia could storm out. She turned to face the group.

“Save Madi. Save Bellamy.” Clarke said, eyes sad. “Please. They don’t deserve this. Save them.”

Octavia nodded, understanding the underlying message. Understanding Clarke’s sadness, but knowing what needed to be done. What she could risk, if she had to.

“I will. See you soon.”

* * *

Octavia stumbled out of the anomaly, heading back in the direction of Sanctum. She was glad there seemed to be fewer temporal flares, because if there had been more, she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to dodge them all in time in her state.

After a few hours, she finally stumbled up to the clearing where she’d left Diyoza and Xavier.

“You’re still here.” Octavia said with relief when she spotted them.

“You look like hell.” Xavier commented. “But I see your hand’s healed, and that you’ve got blood alteration.”

“Yeah. It is and I do. Let’s go.”

“Back to Sanctum? The old man has a plan?” Diyoza said.

“I am the plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter got longer than I though it would. Whoops. Next chapter posting in a moment, so don't worry ;)


	7. Miraculum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia embarks on her mission in Sanctum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter will come tomorrow before the episode airs! So glad you've all come on this journey with me <3 If canon can even do half of all of this, I might be happy with it :D

Darkness was falling as they reached the radiation fence. Xavier and Diyoza had been skeptical at first, but when Octavia repeated to Diyoza what some of Clarke’s first words to her had been, and passed on a message to Xavier from Sebastian, they were convinced.

“You two stay here.” Octavia looked around, recognizing the place where they’d come through the fence when she’d first landed on the ground. “Keep an eye on this whole perimeter. First priority is to get Madi out. So watch for her. Second priority is to take down the Primes.”

“Good luck, Octavia.” Diyoza said. “I’ll keep the kid safe when she gets here, no matter what else happens.”

“Here goes.” Octavia walked up to the radiation fence, feeling ahead with one hand, and she felt the sizzle of the barrier, but her hand passed through unharmed. She stepped the rest of the way through and breathed a sigh of relief. Nightblood worked.

Delilah and Sebastian kept pace with her as she raced through the fields and up to the settlement, aiming for the keep, telling her what paths to take to stay out of sight.

They’d almost made it to the keep when a vaguely familiar woman stepped out in front of them.

“Who are you?” The woman asked suspiciously.

“That’s my mother.” Delilah whispered. “Don’t kill her. Please.”

“It’s okay.” Octavia said carefully, speaking both to Blythe Ann and Delilah. “I’m from Earth. And I’m here to give your daughter back to you.”

“Delilah has become one with the Primes.” Blythe Ann said sadly. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

“It isn’t.” Octavia listened as Delilah whispered to her and then addressed Blythe Ann. “Delilah is here with me right now. She told me to tell you about the time when she was four years old, and you first told her about the Primes. She was so young, but still so scared about what would happen to her. About how she’d disappear when she became one with them. But she hasn’t disappeared. You can see her again. Today. I promise you. Just let me pass. Please.”

Blythe Ann nodded and stepped aside.

Octavia breathed a sigh of relief and resumed her run to the centre of the keep, drawing her sword before entering the skeleton room.

“No, no, no.” Clarke breathed, flickering in and out of Octavia’s vision. “They got him.”

“What do you mean?” Octavia hissed. “They put the mind drive in my brother?”

Clarke nodded frantically. “He’s here with me now in the anomaly. But he’s catatonic, he’s - he’s in the simulation. I need to take care of him, I’m sorry. Just _stop this.”_

Clarke flickered out again, and Octavia moved into the skeleton room slowly, watching for any guards. She could see the operating room door open beyond it, and moved around the perimeter slowly as she listened to Abby and Kane talking, his voice so different from her brother’s even if it was his body. She heard the lies that Abby spun to him, the tales she told to make him okay with what had happened, how she justified having Madi there, gagged and bound to the gurney, how she truly seemed to believe that her daughter was okay with doing this to her daughter and her best friend.

This was her chance.

“Just when I thought you couldn’t be even more foolish, here you are.” Octavia said, stepping in through the door, sword pointed straight at Abby. “Kane. Do you really think that Clarke would let Abby experiment with her own daughter, taking blood from her? Are you really that delusional?”

“How the hell did you get in here?” Abby asked. “You were outside the fence.”

“And now I’m inside it. To stop you. From _torturing children_ and taking over people’s bodies. You did this to my brother. You took my brother’s body and put _him_ in it. How dare you.”

“No. She said Bellamy came willingly. To atone for his past mistakes, he gave up his body so that I could live.” Kane said.

Octavia scoffed and pressed forwards, Abby and Josephine now circling around to stand next to Kane, leaving Octavia a path to Madi. She took it, removing the gag from Madi’s mouth and releasing one of her hands, keeping her sword up in warning to the three on the other side of the room. Madi removed the rest of the bonds herself.

“That’s a lie!” Madi yelled out. “All of this is lies!”

“What do you mean?” Kane asked.

Madi stared straight at Josephine. “That’s not Clarke.”

Abby’s expression grew worried. “What do you mean, that’s not Clarke?”

“Oh, did I forget to mention that part?” Josephine said innocently, her mannerisms becoming distinctly _not-Clarke_ and Abby backed up a few steps. “Surprise. I’m not Clarke.”

Abby looked at Josephine, at Madi, at Kane, at Octavia, her expression growing more and more horrified. “What have I done?” she whispered.

“You know what you’ve done.” Octavia accused. “And you can’t escape it this time, like you’ve escaped every other time. This time people are going to know.”

Abby dove towards Octavia, but she wasn’t a warrior and telegraphed her moves, and Octavia knew that Abby was aiming _at_ her sword, to dive onto it, not to attack. She stepped aside easily, grabbing Abby by the scruff of the neck.

“It won’t be that easy.” Octavia hissed into her ear. “You want to atone for your mistakes? Do what Clarke would want you to do. Get Madi out of here.”

Abby nodded, eyes wide as tears trailed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“Get Madi to the fence where we came in. There are people waiting for her on the other side. She’ll be safe.”

Octavia handed her sword to Madi. “Go.”

Madi nodded, and she and Abby fled the room.

Octavia turned back to Josephine and Kane, now weaponless. Josephine was watching her carefully, eyes on the gash on Octavia’s cheek.

“This one’s got black blood too.” She said. “We can use her.”

“Like hell you are.” Octavia spat. “You’re both going to die for what you’ve done.”

“We can’t die, little girl.” Josephine grinned. “We’re immortal. And what I learned working here with Abby - guarantees that we’ll live many centuries into the future.”

“Kane, are you still buying her nonsense?” Octavia asked, looking to him, where despite her brother’s body, his thoughtful face was very much the one she recognized from her former mentor.

“I can’t condone what Abby has done.” Kane said carefully. “But I agree with - whatever this girl’s name is - that using you is the best course of action for peace.”

“My name is Josephine. And I’m so glad you agree. We’ve got a perfect candidate waiting for a body right here, her name is Jasmine. She’s been waiting many decades. She’s a sweet girl. Little feisty sometimes, but so’s this one.” Josephine smiled at Octavia, the smile so fake that Octavia rolled her eyes. “If you come quietly, it won’t hurt.”

“Think about it, Octavia.” Kane said. “Think about everything that you’ve done. All the horror. All of the bloodshed. You can wash that all away today. You can be at peace, and you can give someone else the chance at a new life.”

Octavia wanted to roll her eyes at him too, but she knew that she needed to get that mind drive implanted, as much as it terrified her. So she stayed silent.

“You’re sick of fighting, aren’t you Octavia?” Kane pressed. “After all of the pain and impossible choices, don’t you want your life to mean something good? Leave a positive legacy for the future peace of this world? So your friends can live in a world where they don’t have to fight anymore?”

Octavia let him walk up right next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder even as she wanted to push him away in disgust, this man who dared to think he deserved to wear her brother’s face.

“Bellamy’s at peace now. He no longer has to fight the demons of his past. You can be at peace too. You can be with him, and Clarke, she’s free of her past as well. We’ll always remember the sacrifice that the three of you have made for us, so that we can finally have a peaceful life.”

“Okay.” Octavia whispered, slipping on a new mask so that she could look up at this man that she despised with what looked like contrition. “I’ll do it. I - I want peace.”

They appeared to buy it.

Octavia let them lead her to the gurney and strap her down. Inject some sort of solution that made her brain hazy, but she still heard bits and pieces through it. She felt them cut the back of her neck open, slipping the mind drive into it and stitching it back up.

She felt the tech probe at her mind, suddenly terrified that Gabriel was wrong, that this mind drive was going to override her brain and make her lost forever, but it didn’t. It probed, but it was as if it hit a barrier of some kind, and she breathed an internal sigh of relief.

The haze started to clear, and as she heard their voices come back to clarity, she knew she had to put on the right show of panic, opening her eyes and jolting up with a scream. Josephine stroked her hair, willing her to calm down, and Octavia went with it, with what they expected, until she was free from the bonds.

“Jasmine, right?” Kane said, trying to smile as he removed the restraints. “That’s what Josephine says your name is. Welcome back to the world of the living.”

“Oh, I’m not Jasmine.” Octavia growled as she hopped off the gurney, registering Kane’s look of horror, so different from her brother’s and anger coursed through her veins again at how he _dared_ use his body.

“Josephine, sedate her now, something’s wrong, that’s still Octavia.”

Octavia whipped around to catch Josephine’s hand, making her drop the paralytic, and threw her at Kane, making them collide and drop to the ground.

Octavia took a deep breath and spoke the phrase Gabriel had given her.

_Hoc est enim corpus meum._

Everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoc est enim corpus meum - For this is my body


	8. Sanctum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke wake up to the aftermath, and Bellamy does something he should have done over 125 years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! I've now written and posted 14k of fic in a week. That was a marathon, but now it's done! This fic is brought to you by the Lisa Miskovksy songs "Still Alive and "Why Start a Fire" (where the title of this fic was drawn from), and "Roardin" by Marcela Bovio, "Believer" by Imagine Dragons, "Forgettable" by Project 46 feat. Olivia, "Frozen" by Within Temptation and "Nightmare" by Halsey. Yes, I have vast and diverse musical interests, Spotify recommends me interesting things :D
> 
> Also, there's a line in Mandarin, since it is another language that Sanctum uses, Google Translate/Wiktionary only goes so far, so if you know Mandarin and there's a better way to say what's being said, please let me know!
> 
> **Warning:** Offscreen death of two major The 100 characters. But if you've come this far, trust me, ain't gonna be anyone you'll miss ;)

Bellamy awoke slowly, groaning from the pain in the back of his neck. His hand came away bloody - _Nightblood,_ that would take some getting used to - as he tried to take in the rest of the room. Tried to process everything he’d seen as he’d been violently torn from his body, and then just as violently thrust back into it.

He heard a moan beside him, and turned to find Clarke there, struggling to sit up.

“Clarke?” Bellamy asked. “Please say it’s you.”

“It’s me.” Clarke tried to look around him. “How is she?”

“Madi? I’m so sorry, Clarke, I -”

“Not your fault. Also not Madi. I know she’s safe.”

“Then who - ?” Bellamy turned, finally looking in the direction Clarke was.

Just a few feet away, at the foot of the gurney - Octavia, bruised and bleeding - _also Nightblood,_ Bellamy noted - sprawled and unmoving on the floor.

“What the hell is she doing here?”

“Saving us all.” Clarke crawled over to Octavia, checking her pulse and breathing. “She’s alive.”

“Clearly you know something I don’t.”

“You know that place you were? When you were kicked out of your body? That’s where I’ve been for days now. Possibly more, time moved differently there, anyway - Octavia came there too. Physically, inside the temporal anomaly. What you were experiencing there, she did too. She went through all of it, despite still having her body, so that she could come here, save Madi and take down the Primes. Which, given that we have our bodies back, she succeeded at.” Clarke rested a hand on Bellamy’s. “She saved us all, Bellamy. Without her we’d still be lost. Possibly forever.”

“Why isn’t she waking up?”

“Gabriel gave her - wait, maybe this is like when we disconnected Raven from the City of Light. Help me get her on her side.”

Bellamy shifted Octavia onto her side while Clarke found a scalpel, carefully cutting the stitches on the back of Octavia’s neck open. Using tweezers, she pulled out the shattered pieces of the mind drive. Bellamy’s hand drifted back to his neck.

“The one in me still feels solid.”

“Me too. Probably has to do with the fact that she spoke the words to destroy them. Being closer to the source meant that it was physically destroyed.”

Clarke pulled a final piece out of Octavia’s neck, arranging them on a tray to confirm she had all of the fragments.

“Okay, that’s that one done. Now for Gabriel’s chip.”

Slowly but surely, an additional silver-sheened substance oozed out of Octavia’s neck, as Clarke dabbed it away carefully. When it was done, Clarke stitched the wound back up.

But still Octavia didn’t wake.

“What’s wrong? You got all the tech out of her head, why isn’t she waking up?”

“I don’t know, Bellamy. Let’s get her somewhere more comfortable.”

Bellamy lifted Octavia up in his arms, one of hers flopping loose from his hold, a dead weight. As he started to move towards the gurney, the outer doors to the skeleton room crashed open, and people began pouring in.

Clarke and Bellamy turned to see what was happening, as almost everyone they knew tumbled in the door of the operating room. Echo and Miller were both sporting some cuts and bruises, but otherwise everyone looked fine. Delilah - this was _Delilah_ now, not Priya anymore - followed, clinging onto Jordan with one hand and her mother with the other. Following them, a number of the other citizens of Sanctum.

“We got the upper hand on the Primes, and then they suddenly all dropped.” Miller said. “And woke up as who they’d been before the mind drives. What happened here?”

Delilah emerged from the crowd to walk up to Clarke and Bellamy, running a delicate hand over Octavia’s bruised cheek. “She saved us. She freed our bodies from the control of the Primes. Returned our minds.”

The man who had been taken over by Ryker Prime stepped out of the crowd as well, joining them.

“For those who do not know the real me, my name is Sebastian. Years ago, before my Naming Day, I attempted to rebel. I was going to run away with my lover, but - but the Primes subdued me and forced the mind drive on me against my will. For years now, my mind - like all of our minds, for all of us who were taken over by the Primes - has existed within the anomaly, with Gabriel. He saved our consciousnesses from oblivion. But didn’t have a way to stop it.” He turned to look at Octavia. “Until a girl from Earth was brave enough to walk into the anomaly to find him.

“I watched her face the trials of her past.” Sebastian continued. “I watched her face her greatest fears. Her greatest troubles. And after facing all of that, despite being cast out by her people, she still came here to set us all free from the tyranny of the Primes. Her name is Octavia Blake, hallowed -”

“No.” Delilah said, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder. “It is time for new traditions. Besides, she yet lives. We will honour her as _tā chízhīyǐhéng,_ and she has earned her place in our world.”

“Ta - ta chi - what did you call her?” Bellamy asked, confused.

_“Tā chízhīyǐhéng_ \- She who perseveres.” Delilah said. “There is much you don’t know about your sister, Bellamy. I suggest that you learn it.”

Clarke nodded in agreement. “She’s right. But right now we should get her somewhere comfortable. Somewhere safe.” Clarke looked up to address the gathered people. “Let’s take tonight to relax. Be thankful for the safe return of the people we love. Tomorrow you can worry about where your society will go from here.”

* * *

Three days passed, and Octavia still hadn’t woken up.

Bellamy sat by her bedside, holding her hand, he’d barely left the room during that time. Clarke stood in the doorway, looking at him, looking at her, and thinking about everything that they’d been through in the past years.

“Hey.” Clarke said.

“Hey.” Bellamy said, voice heavy. “I’m sorry I didn’t go to your mom’s funeral. I - I didn’t want to leave her.”

“It’s okay.” Clarke said, sitting down next to him. “I’m sorry for what my mother did to you. But she died saving Madi, and after everything she’s done, I hope that was enough for her to find peace. She’s with Kane now. Seems poetic.”

“And Gabriel?”

“He’s still alive. For now, but probably not too much longer. His mission is accomplished and the anomaly vanished, meaning his years are coming on him quite quickly. He thinks that it was the manipulation of the cycle of life here in Sanctum that created that sort of anomaly, and that what he did within it was what made it more powerful. It weakened when Octavia was in the simulation, as if the simulation was drawing on its power to present itself to a physical being. And when the mind drives went out - it was gone entirely.”

Bellamy nodded. “He doesn’t have any theories on why she isn’t waking up?”

“He said brain scans are all normal. She’s in there, she’s just resting. And I don’t blame her. She’s had a tough couple of days. Weeks. Years.”

“You still haven’t told me what happened to… to make all of this. What drove her to the anomaly. What made her who she was back on Earth -”

“Because it isn’t my story to tell.” Clarke said. “It’s hers. She’s been through so much, Bellamy. But the core of who she is has never changed. You have to believe that.”

“I wish I could, but there are all these pieces that just don’t match up.”

“You want my advice?”

“I know you’re going to give it to me anyway.”

“Remember how that simulation gave you the opportunity to revisit choices?”

“Yeah.”

“Do that. Take the moment of when we opened the bunker. Figure out how you could have done things differently. How you could have talked to her. What you could have said instead.”

“Are you saying I should pretend that the past few weeks - both here and on Earth before cryo - didn’t happen? And go back to the beginning of all of this?”

“Yes.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“It was for us. Why not for her?”

Before Bellamy could answer, Octavia’s hand in his twitched, and she began to wake up, grumbling a bit before finally opening her eyes.

“Bellamy?” Octavia asked groggily.

“Hey, O.” Bellamy said, and Octavia smiled faintly, probably because he was using her nickname again.

“I’ll leave you two alone.” Clarke said, and disappeared out the door, giving Bellamy a quick squeeze of the shoulder in support.

“How do you feel?” He asked.

“Like someone used me as a punching bag.”

“I’m sorry, O.”

“I guess it’s a good thing that you exiled me. Otherwise Kane would still be walking around in your body.”

“You saved us.” Bellamy said. “I - I guess I don’t understand why. Clarke said I should go back to the beginning. Start there.”

“What? With the day I was born and began to ruin your life?”

“No. You didn’t - no, O. I meant - she said we should start this ‘after six years apart’ business all over again. The day the bunker opened. I - I guess I didn’t handle things the way I should have?”

“You didn’t.” Octavia said, looking away from him, towards the window, closing her eyes to enjoy the sun on her face. “You judged me without even knowing what we’d been through those six years. You put my people in danger. You almost got me killed.”

“Let’s start there. I’m sorry about the deal I made with Diyoza, and how it ended up backfiring.”

“She and I are fine now.” Octavia shrugged, wincing as that pulled at her stitches. “All we had out there was each other. She saved my life.” Her eyes turned sad as she turned back to face Bellamy. “That should have been you. Saving my life when you opened the bunker. But you didn’t.”

Bellamy looked down with a sigh. “I guess you’re right. I should have asked what happened down there.”

“You should have.”

“I’m asking now. Please, O. My sister isn’t dead, she’s very much alive and she saved our lives and I need to know her story. I need to know what brought her - what brought _you_ \- here. Please.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve cleared my schedule.”

Octavia sighed, but started talking. She told him of the day of the farm mutiny, the chaos, how she needed to create order, drawing on both Ark and Grounder methods. She spoke of the fears of how they’d survive if someone from the outside wasn’t there to open the door five years down the line. How Jaha had taught her how she could make leadership her own, even when it wasn’t something she ever wanted.

Bellamy’s heart almost stopped when Octavia began speaking of the Dark Year, not wanting to meet his eyes. How in the aftermath, every one of her advisors and mentors began to step back, leaving her alone. The way they disowned her when the chance came when the bunker was opened, how they couldn’t accept their own complicity in what she’d become to make them survive, and how it was easier for them to leave all of their sins on her. Abby’s continued hypocritical antagonism of her after she’d awoken on the ship.

How everything that had happened sent her into a suicidal spiral that Diyoza was the one to pull her out of, quite literally, and Bellamy couldn’t stop the tears from spilling over when he realized again that it _should have been him_ who gave her that compassion.

At least he was here now.

Octavia finished her story with how she got into Sanctum and released a long breath, resting back against the pillows, exhausted by recounting the emotional ordeal of the past six years. Bellamy sat in silence, processing everything that he’d heard.

“I’m so proud of you, O.” Bellamy finally said. “Everything, it - it would have crushed anyone else to pieces. I wouldn’t have been able to bear it like you did, I know that. But you did it. Even when no one believed in you. Even when you didn’t believe in yourself, you still kept going. I understand why Delilah gave you that appellation.”

“Huh?”

“After you took out the mind drives, it was just you, me and Clarke in the operating room, until pretty much all of Sanctum showed up. Sebastian and Delilah gave this big speech about how you’d saved them, and then Delilah gave your name an appellation in Chinese, I don’t know how to say it properly, but it means ‘she who perseveres’. Many of the Sanctum citizens are ready to vote for you as the leader.”

“No.” Octavia said. “I’m not doing that again.”

“After hearing everything… I don’t blame you. I really don’t.”

“I’m so tired, Bell. I just want to sleep for days.”

“You’ve already been asleep for three.”

“It’s been a long… hundred and thirty one years.”

“I know. Now, I know. I’m so sorry, O. I hope that you can accept me as your brother again. Even after everything I did.”

“You’re my brother. You’ll never not be. I love you, big brother.”

“I love you too. So much.”

Bellamy helped Octavia sit up and pulled her into a tight hug, not wanting to let his sister go ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this fic is done, but given that I did set it up as a series, I'll open things up to requests... any follow-up oneshots you'd like to see? Characters you'd like to see interact and/or reunite? Floor's open for suggestions :D


End file.
